Are we not but sinking ships?
Slowly but surely,
Fathom by fathom,
Taking on caustic water yearly,
Our cerebral captains have run a loose ship,
Mutiny is the standard,
The posts aren’t manned,
And the hull is leaking,
The navigator is mollified at the helm,
Drunk on a rum of broken aspirations,
And there’s always a storm in the distance,
We drift past similar vessels,
Kindred spirits,
Unable to salvage one another,
And is that not what we are,
Just shipwrecks in the end.
That is enough of people for one day,
My residence is concluded,
Too many voices,
Too many faces,
Too many questions,
My social battery,
Is no longer a social butterfly,
Take me away,
Take me home,
No malice of course,
I’ll be back among you,
The revels were sorely needed,
I just think the battery is running flat,
Just let me rest.
The cadence of life is nothing if not volatile,
Up and down,
Like a chaotic sheet of music,
Written by a madman,
Our music changes over the years,
The harmonies slowing and hastening,
Different inflections falling upon our voices,
The frantic and shrill woodwind solos,
Incidents and triumphs,
Or slow rumbling percussion,
Dullness and anxiety,
It’s an unpredictable monster of a song,
We breath ever on,
Riding the scales along the melody,
The composition goes on,
And ever on.
Humans are golems,
Not of stone and clay,
Sculpted by artisan hands,
But a patchwork of ordeals,
An amalgam of experiences,
Lessons and trials knitting flesh,
We are rendered sentient by our stories,
Line and verse within each vein,
They make us who we are,
Gearing our natures,
Augmenting how we interact with the world,
No tale is ever the same after all,
And stories are fireproof,
Even at the point of death,
Our narratives continue on,
Blended with those of our loved ones.
Life is a revolving door,
A contraption both devilish and glorious,
Spinning within a cyclone,
A tornado of crises and marvels,
Spied through lucent glass,
Dizzy,
So dizzy,
Other figures ride alongside,
Friends and enemies,
Lovers and nemeses,
They get on and off at random,
Stepping out of sight and mind,
Whirling,
Still whirling,
As the years go by,
The door spins slower,
The options dwindle,
Eventually it’ll cease,
With only a single destination,
Silence,
No more heartbearts.
Time has trained us to go fast,
Too fast,
Too rushed,
Too occupied,
It’s a coach that’s pushed us too hard,
Accelerating each year,
Running over aspirations in its path,
Modernity is some kind of stimulant,
Petroleum to a match,
Sprinting towards our coffins,
Our lives have become skip buttons on LED screens,
Not slow enough,
Not carefree enough,
Not free enough,
The Earth is a blur of coloured motion,
We dismiss the small connections,
No longer feeling the rain or grass,
Only enjoying life in passing,
We’re too busy climbing the heights,
That we miss the sights.
We’ve always been casualties,
Losses,
Fatalities,
Laid amidst shrapnel and bloody rags,
Souls laid in the street,
We were casualties of birth,
Unable to receive oblivion,
Thrust into the world,
Added to the unholy tally,
Another tick on the doomsday clock,
Now we are casualties of society,
We’re trapped within this artifice,
Cogs of a machine we didn’t design,
Engine oil taken right from the artery,
Advocates of our own exploitation,
Despite the light and healing,
The band-aids placed upon amputated limbs,
Boons that life begrudgingly gives,
That’s all we shall ever be,
Casualties.
I’ve been thinking,
The globe is a viper pit,
And its inhabitants reptiles,
All of us,
Lizard scales over our eyes,
Those cold eyes and colder hearts,
Like boas do we pressure each other,
Slaves and taskmasters,
We hoard like avaricious dragons,
In caves of plaster and copper,
Stabbing one another like cobra fangs,
Blades in hand and venom on tongues,
Evolution is coming too idly,
Warm blood is a rarity in our nature,
Is it sustainable?
Who can say?
You remember the dinosaurs?
Where are they now?
Why does a mind cursed with insight,
Seek to destroy itself?
You see it all the time,
Sorrow seems to haunt them,
A lingering state of deep misery,
Does the minds eye see something?
A truth unknown to the masses,
A tragedy only they can see,
Some desolate concept of the universe,
Something so terrible,
Great understanding seems to be a burden,
To know things,
A screw under the fingernail,
A torture,
Something only insanity quells,
They say no genius exists without madness,
And it appears true,
But I do wonder why.
After each squandered day,
A recurrent occasion,
In my bed do I lament,
Am I wasting my time?
Is it too late to have achievements?
Am I too late to change?
The moon softly consoles,
A sad piano in her voice,
For she has seen this many times,
The gate is slowly closing,
And my panic claws at its timber,
The sand runs away,
And my bloodshot eyes weep at the loss,
But this was all my doing,
I tied this blood-red noose,
Many moons ago,
And with each sundown it grows tighter,
The portcullis edges lower.
WorldofHarley 